by Jen Ponce
I thought maybe I was okay too, though the words tangled in my brain before they got to my mouth. I held my babies close instead, waiting for tears that didn’t come. Was I broken? Had I lost my soul again? No, I didn’t have that hollow feeling I’d had when Amara had stolen mine from me.
“Mom?”
I smiled at Bethy and smoothed my hand over her cheek. I wanted to tell her I loved her but forming words was something my mouth didn’t want to do.
“Why can’t she talk?”
“It will take a while for her to feel like herself again.”
Nex. I tipped my head to see my friend hovering near my feet. Just past him, I saw Tytan’s mirror on the wall. Tytan’s mirror. His manse.
I looked at my children, fear thrumming through me. What were my children doing in the Slip?
“It’s okay sweetheart,” I heard my father say from my other side. “Kroshtuka was against it but Tytan and I thought you would need them. They’re well-guarded, I promise. And as soon as you’re feeling better, they go back to Odd Silver. Okay?”
Okay? No, it wasn’t okay. My children were in the Slip. I’d vowed to never let them come here and … and I couldn’t even ask them if they were fine, if they’d been hurt, if …
“Mom, we’re okay.” Bethy was frowning at me. “Seriously, you don’t have to worry about us so much. We’re not babies anymore.”
I studied her. She was right. They weren’t babies. Hell, they weren’t even the same damn age I remembered. What happened, I wanted to shriek, but all I could do was blink at them desperately.
In my head, Kroshtuka said, ‘It’s okay. Not that much time has passed. I promise you, Devany. They haven’t aged in years, merely months.’
Months. They’d thought I was dead for months?
“Honey, we have you back. We didn’t think we’d ever get that but Lizzie couldn’t find you in the Dreamscape so she thought you must be alive and Nex here, he went in after you. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. And Tytan? He made all this possible. Everyone in this room helped in one way or another.” My father was smiling at me with the biggest grin, as if thinking me dead for months hadn’t affected him at all. Or maybe he was so thrilled to see me, it had chased away the grief. Why the hell was I thinking poorly of my dad being happy to see me?
“Love you.” The words startled me, seeing as how they’d come from my mouth. “Love you guys. I …” I broke off and this time tears did come. Bethy and Liam hugged me tighter and I could feel Kroshtuka’s fingers stroking my wrist. It was all too much and not enough all wrapped up in a big ball of confusing emotions and I let myself sink into them. They were my family after all. All weird, wild, and wonderful. I even got a hug from Kali and I was absolutely positive no one else in the universe could say that. Vasili gave me a fist bump and introduced me to his girlfriend.
Girlfriend.
Girlfriend.
I couldn’t get over it. Girlfriend?
And he looked happy.
Even Zeph came to talk to me, though her face was haggard. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.” And she left before I could nag it out of her and no one else would tell me. Fine. I’d figure it out eventually.
“Where’s Ty?”
Looks were exchanged, shrugs happened. It figured he would run off. Probably made him feel all emotional. I didn’t see Arsinua but wasn’t surprised. My brother wasn’t there either, which hurt, but I knew he hated the Slip, so I wouldn’t be angry with him for it.
‘I missed you,’ I said to Kroshtuka. His smile made my chest warm.
‘I missed you too.’ He opened himself up and I felt his pain at hearing I’d died, the pain he carried there still, like a wound that had been stitched but still wasn’t fully healed.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry. Be glad you’re here. Be glad so many love you. Be glad that Nex would not believe you’d been eaten by the fleshcrawlers.’
I made a face. “You guys thought I’d been eaten? Oh god.” I looked at my kids, but they were oblivious, too busy chatting with Jack and Nex in a corner. Bethy was dying to touch his intestines, I could see it all over her face.
“It was my fault,” Kali said, in a tone of voice that indicated she was ready for me to punish her severely for her presumption. She bowed her head. “I fought my way through their ranks and could not find you. Then one of them showed me bloody remains and I believed them when they said it was you. I didn’t know what else to think.”
I reached out with clumsy fingers and took one of her hands. “I understand. Fleshcrawlers are sneaky bastards. I’m not surprised you didn’t find me. I’m not surprised Nex did. He’s a sneaky bastard too.” A quick squeeze from me, a nod from her, and then she slipped away.
Nex flashed his gruesome grin, which made Bethy snatch her fingers back from almost touching a dangling gut. Nex whispered something that made her giggle and then she had an intestine in her hand. I sighed. Why exactly had I been afraid of my kids meeting my weird, extended Slip family?
Oh right. Because of monsters like Gaius. “He’s still locked up, right?”
More eye-shifting.
Oh god.
“What happened? Please don’t tell me he got out.”
My father was still perched on the back of the couch I lay on. He shrugged as if to say he knew nothing about anything. It was Elizabeta who told me. “He called Mal to him. Apparently Gaius made him? Sort of? He created the process used to make him, anyway. Mal couldn’t resist the call, had never experienced it to know what it was, let alone how to stop himself from following … He compelled Mal to break the seal and then destroyed Reach escaping.”
A sick, hollow feeling spread in my stomach. All those people I’d released, the ones who’d chosen to stay in the tower because they had nowhere else to go. All dead?
Behind me where I couldn’t see him, Tytan said, “He called all his Skriven up and we played right into his hands by putting them in cells in Reach. It helped him gather enough power to call Mal.” How long had he been standing there? When had he hooked in and why wouldn’t he come where I could see him?
His voice shivered over me. Flashes of a memory pierced my skull, not a bad memory, not at all.
His hands on my breasts, his lips on mine.
Memories of love making flooded me, flushing my skin. What the hell? Was he doing that? “Ty?”
He knew. He knew what I was asking even though I couldn’t ask the question. “I’ll explain later.”
I wanted to demand he tell me right then, but there were too many people around. Kroshtuka.
Oh god. What had I done?
I was curled up with Krosh and the kids in Odd Silver. With Gaius on the loose, I didn’t want to stay in the Slip … with whatever had happened between Tytan and I, I couldn’t stay. Not until I knew.
God, what had happened? I’d been dead. No way it could have happened. The memories … they originated in my room at my house on Earth. I hadn’t been there in forever.
So … a dream? A weird fantasy? Something he’d planted in my head for some reason? Some kind of psychic echo from his soul rubbing against mine?
That, in itself, sounded pervy.
I sighed and felt Kroshtuka’s arms tighten around me. Bethy muttered at Liam and Liam muttered back. They weren’t used to snuggling together now that they both slept with friends in different huts. I’d wanted them here too, since I hadn’t seen them in what felt like years and years, but now I realized how uncomfortable everyone was. “You guys can go if you want.”
“Really?” Liam sounded so hopeful I almost laughed.
“We can’t leave you. You died,” Bethany added in case we’d forgotten.
“I know. But I’m not dead now and you don’t have to go if you don’t want—”
Liam was already at the door. “I love you, Mom. And I’m so glad you’re okay. Okay?”
I nodded and he was gone, out the door and away to his friends. It
was good, I told myself. Growing up meant growing more independent. It was good he could do that.
It still hurt, though.
“I’m not leaving,” Bethy said, and laid back down, her back pressed against mine.
“Okay,” I said, and Good I thought, loving the feel of being sandwiched between her and Krosh. “How are you?”
“Good now that you’re here. Good now that I can do this.” He kissed me, a long, slow kiss that burned all the way to my toes. It wasn’t a long kiss, but man it was good. “I don’t want to have to learn to live without you.”
Me neither. But what if I’d done something terrible? What if I’d betrayed him?
“What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know what was wrong and with my emotions so wonky and off still, I didn’t want to say anything I would regret later. “I still don’t feel like this is my body … I mean, I know it’s not. It’s a construct and I’m not sure how I feel about it.” I held out an arm and turned it this way and that. “It looks like mine. There’s even the scar I got when I was fourteen from my best friend.” I showed him, showed Bethany and explained the story. “But there are memories that aren’t mine,” not just the vivid ones with Ty, “and there are feelings that don’t feel like mine either. I don’t know what to think. I’m grateful, so grateful that I’m alive. I just wish …” I wished Gaius hadn’t killed me. I wished I had my own body. I wished I hadn’t fallen down that damned hole at all. If there’d been a Rend that would take me back to right before that moment, I’d walk through in a heartbeat. To lighten things a bit, I put my hand on my neck. “I even kind of miss my gills.”
Kroshtuka laughed. “I’ll bet you could make yourself some if you wished.”
“Probably.” That wasn’t the point. Point was I’d earned those gills and every scar and bump. This body? It was just a copy. A good copy, but a copy for all that.
I’d wanted to see what had come of my old body, but no one would show me. “Not now,” they’d said. “When you’re stronger.”
How bad did I look?
No, I had to start thinking of this body as mine or I’d never feel comfortable again.
How bad did my old body look?
“It will be okay.”
“I know.”
“We love you, Mom. So much.”
I reached back and found her hand, slipping my fingers between hers. “I love you guys too. So, so much.” So much and I had to figure out how to keep them all safe while dealing with a weird body and weirder memories and emotions.
“You don’t have to do it alone,” Krosh said. His new talent—reading my expressions and interpreting them with ease.
“I know. Apparently, Ty is an Originator. And Kali will kick ass with me. Vasili.” I frowned. “I didn’t expect so many things to change while I was gone. I know that things happen, that the world doesn’t just stop when I’m not around but … geesh. Vasili has a girlfriend.”
Kroshtuka shook with laughter. “Of all the things that happened, that’s what you dwell on most?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Because Vasili?” Besides, thinking of Medusa Head being all goofy in love kept me from thinking about other, more disturbing things that I wasn’t ready to pick apart and analyze. “He’s so … weird. I mean, I’ve come to like him after getting to know him but I never, in a million, billion years, thought he was boyfriend material.”
“Which one is he?” Bethany asked.
I’d forgotten she met all the scary demon things and didn’t even blink an eye. She held Nex’s intestines in her hand as if she were holding hands with him. Dear lord. “Before I knew his name, I called him Medusa Head.”
“Oh yeah! He was so cool. How can he see without eyeballs?”
I shrugged. Most of the Skriven magic and world was a mystery to me even now. “Magic?”
Bethany snorted. “That’s not an answer. There’re so many different types of magics. I could feel how different it was there, deeper and stinkier.”
“Stinkier?”
“Yeah. Can’t you smell it?”
I confessed I couldn’t unless I really concentrated on it and usually only when I was in my Magic Eye. “Maybe you have a more talented sniffer than I do.”
“Maybe. I’ve been learning a lot, Mom. This place is so great.” She was quiet for a long moment, then said, “I miss my friends back home though.” She poked me in the butt. “Do you think we could go back? See Gramma and Grampa?”
Had I told my kids they had clones living life in their place? Dear lord, what were they doing now that I occupied their fake mother’s body? God, my life was weird. “Yes. Soon. We need to figure out how to keep everyone safe from Gaius first.” I’d told them everything, well, most everything. I couldn’t justify keeping them in the dark anymore and honestly, their non-reaction to the Slip had been what decided me. Liam was right—they weren’t babies anymore and maybe knowing what I knew would keep them safe. Safer.
“He sounds creepy.”
“He was.”
After a while she fell asleep, her deep breathing beside me soothing me into my own troubled dreams.
It wasn’t until I was halfway down the path to the bath hut that I realized I hadn’t used my magic since waking up on the couch in Tytan’s manse. I hadn’t needed it, so I guessed it wasn’t too big of a shocker, but as I made my way, I discovered I couldn’t feel it. It wasn’t absent, necessarily, it just wasn’t there.
That didn’t make sense.
I stopped in the middle of the path, smiling absently at the Wydling who eased around me and continued on her way as I dropped into my Magic Eye. That was working. I could see the threads of life all around me, the magic that danced along every pole and blade of grass. The connections to my Skriven were there. Kali’s line, a vivid black, pulsed with life. If I grabbed it and pulled, I could call her to me.
Tytan’s was gone. I searched through them twice before giving up. Was it because he was now an Originator? Is that why he was no longer accessible this way? Or had he figured out how to hide from me? The way he’d been acting when I woke made me wonder if that was the case and I tucked the thought away before I could admit to myself that it hurt to think of him pushing me away, even though I had done it to him more times than I could count.
I went into my control room to see that it looked … shiny and new. No scorch marks, no dented, scarred metal. The levers and pulleys and buttons and gadgets looked as though they’d never been touched before. So, what was wrong with me?
I shook off the unease and continued to the bath before someone thought to let Kroshtuka know his mate was acting funny. Last thing I needed was a bunch of well-meaning people poking at me trying to figure out why I was broken.
I would never have my own body back again.
That thought made me ache, made me want to bend double and wail, but I kept a slight smile plastered to my face and sank into a tub of warm water, magically filled and magically heated. My eyes drifted shut and I let myself soak. My muscles ached, though I didn’t know why. When I was clean, when I was relaxed, when I could breathe without the pain of loss cutting my deep breaths short, I slipped back out and toweled myself dry. The dress I wore was embroidered with birds that had lightning shooting from their feet. It was beautiful, the material black, the birds white, the lightning blue and green and yellow.
I braided my hair and slipped soft loafers onto my feet to make my way down to the gathering place. Lizzie was there and we just stood and hugged each other for the longest time. When she released me, her eyes studied my face until I wanted to squirm. “I’m so glad you’ve returned to us.”
“Me too.” And I was, I just wanted to be me in my own body, not this fake thing made from the blood of murder victims. Would I remember them? Lucy had. I shivered as I took a seat next to Lizzie and let Mina serve me food. I was too bone-weary to protest, so I settled for profuse thank yous until she threatened to pour water on my head.
“What’s wrong?”
I didn’t know. Well, the body thing, but there was more. More that I couldn’t put my finger on, that tickled in the back of my head like a memory that refused to materialize. “I don’t know if my magic is still … mine.” It was one worry, at least, amid a tumultuous sea of worries.
“Have you tried to work it?”
I shook my head. I was scared to. What if I tried to form a hook and couldn’t? What if I was no longer able to create a protection bubble or blast nasty Originators named Gaius into walls or transform into my Wydling animal self? “The connections are still there. That’s a good sign, right? I wouldn’t be connected to my Skriven if I had lost my magic. Right?”
Her smile was kind. “You won’t know until you try. Trying is easy. Which means you’re scared of the answer.”
Well duh, I wanted to say but I stuffed it down. What if I didn’t have magic anymore? What if I was just an ordinary person? What if only bits of it worked, what if it never worked reliably again? What if I was vulnerable and couldn’t even protect myself, let alone my children, Krosh, Lizzie, and all the other people I cared about? “I was me even without my soul. My same personality was there, I just couldn’t access my emotions. That meant my personality and crap was part of my body. Now I don’t have that anymore. I have my soul but Krosh said it was … torn. What if I forget who I am? What if I’m not me anymore?”
Her hand with its smooth and papery skin covered mine. “I have every faith you’re still you.”
I wished I could believe that with such confidence. I didn’t even know if this body, this construct in which I now resided would last me. What if it rotted or fell apart? Did I have to worry about the magic unraveling, leaving my soul adrift in the wind? Had Arsinua had these worries? I’d thought it an excellent solution when it had been her problem. Now that it was mine, I worried, and it didn’t feel good at all.
“Everything feels tight and weird, like a pair of new shoes you haven’t yet broken in. It also feels normal. It looks like me, it feels like me. It’s just …” I gusted a sigh. I was a whiner and she would soon tire of me emoting instead of eating and enjoying the fact that I was fucking alive. “I’m glad I’m here.”